Browsing: IFC

The new three-year benchmark is priced with a spread of SOFR MS+25 basis points, equivalent to +12.5 basis points over the three-year US Treasury note.

The new standard pays a semi-annual coupon of 3.625 per cent. Morgan Stanley, Citi, Wells Fargo Securities, and TD Securities served as the joint lead managers for this transaction.

IFC achieves another outstanding result in the capital markets! Utilising the robust USD SSA primary market following the summer, the new three-year benchmark was oversubscribed by more than 2.4 times, with both a highly diversified and high-quality final order book.

IFC has succeeded in ensuring that its global annual outing encapsulates the broadest possible investor attention through coherent excellence in execution.…

The Guide mainly covers three key areas – understanding the asset class and where it sits alongside other asset classes, why and how to invest in PEs and an overview of the benefits and risks of investing in PE.

The development of the guide was informed by a market study report that sought to investigate the low uptake of investment by pension schemes.

In Kenya, for instance, PE allocations by pension schemes account for only 0.08 per cent of the total industry assets under management. From a regulatory perspective, there are provisions allowing pensions to invest in PE funds across East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia).

According to Kenya’s pension regulator, the Retirements Benefits Authority (RBA), though the country has had regulations that provide for diversification of pension funds away from traditional instruments, most pension schemes are still predominantly bond and stock investors.…

• The continent internet economy can reach $180 billion by 2025, accounting for 5.2 per cent of Africa’s GDP
• Africa’s access to the internet stands at  40 per cent, according to Google
• With more than 1.3 billion people, Africa lags behind the rest of the world in internet connectivity as it has only 22 per cent in connectivity

Africa’s digital economy is expanding quite fast. The continent internet economy can reach $180 billion by 2025, accounting for 5.2 per cent of Africa’s GDP, according to information from IFC.

Doubling down on the latter, by 2050, the projected potential contribution could reach $712 billion, 8.5 per cent of the continent’s GDP (IFC). Internet in Africa is the new gold as it facilitates the growth of technology-driven sectors, transforming communities’ economies.

Internet in Africa is transforming economies of fast-growing countries that also record a large share of internet users in the region, such …

This as 19 per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa lived in areas not covered by mobile networks while an additional 53 per cent did not use mobile internet despite having coverage.

The need for accessible internet solutions comes after Meta (formerly Facebook) announced plans to shut down its low-cost Express Wi-Fi internet.

The programme was launched back in 2016 to drive internet connectivity in regions where other forms of connectivity, like ADSL and fibre-optic networks, aren’t readily available or established.…

The Kenyan bank said it would use the loan to help it increase working capital and trade-related lending to its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients in Kenya, especially those facing COVID-19 related challenges.

The loan from IFC is one of the single-largest credit facilities to a Kenyan lender.

Besides shoring up the bank’s capital base, the new loan will also be lent to customers, fitting IFC’s’ impact investing criteria.

IFC encourages the banks it funds to lend to women-owned enterprises and climate-related ventures such as renewable energy projects.…

The government’s plan, under what was dubbed the Big 4 Agenda was to see low-cost housing provided for those earning between KSh15,000 (US$150) to KSh49,000 (US$50). There was also a plan to cover those with little or no income at all. 

But questions on how the houses would be allocated threw cold water on the project which sounded like a scam every time government officials tried to explain the proposal and how it would work.…

Africa has more digital financial services deployments than any other region in the world, with almost half of the nearly 700 million individual users worldwide.…

With Africa being majorly youthful, this crisis could be just what the continent needed to shift from the analogue way of doing things to moving the office online.…

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is launching a new advisory program to improve women’s employment opportunities in Egypt.

IFC which is a member of the World Bank Group aims at highlighting how Egypt’s private sector companies can invest in the county’s large, underutilized female talent and spur economic growth.

In a statement by the corporation, IFC said the program will run for three years and will help create family-friendly, flexible workplaces to make Egyptian businesses more resilient, agile and inclusive, especially in times of crises.

In 2019, only 24 per cent of working-age women participated in Egypt’s labour market in 2019, compared to 75 per cent of men. If women and men participated equally, the country’s GDP could rise by 34 per cent.

“The participation of women is macro-critical, it is no longer lip service, all stakeholders from the public and private sector as well as IFIs are coming together …

Africa’s close development partner, World Bank—on Thursday took a serious initiative to restore its relations with Somalia, after being dull for almost 30 years

According to the statement from World Bank Group, the bank’s Board of Executive Directors moved toward normalizing its relations with the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS).

World Bank anticipates that the restoration will open up opportunities for Somalia to access concessional financing from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) and to work closely with all arms of the World Bank Group to attract investment that will support the country’s stability and development.

The restoration could revitalize Somalia’s economic sphere, as the nation’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth weakened in 2017 due to the severe drought. Although Somalia averted widespread famine in 2017, the drought led to large-scale food insecurity, affecting more than six million people.

In that context, World Bank Vice President for Africa …